BEFORE: Well, this one was on Tubi the last time I checked - but now I find that's it's no longer there. Why can't movies just stay where I left them, how am I supposed to find them when I need them? It's an extra step that shouldn't be necessary. Anyway, now it's on Peacock so I guess Peacock is the new Tubi, which is bad news for Tubi. Tubi now feels like that little take-out restaurant that popped up in the space of a bigger chain restaurant which closed that particular location, they're only there because the space has a working grill, but they haven't changed most of the signage so essentially it feels like they're squatters. You want to place an order with them and help them out, but you're afraid that the restaurant's not really open, even though Yelp says it is. So you go there in person, and thankfully they're still open, but now they're wrapping all the food in paper because it's cheaper than using those foil containers with the clear plastic lids, so really, it's only a matter of time before they shut down.
Ana de Armas carries over from "The Night Clerk".
THE PLOT: A devoted father helps two stranded young women who knock on his door, but his kind gesture turns into a dangerous seduction and a deadly game of cat and mouse.
AFTER: Well, I suppose in the end this is the most significant cautionary tale against cheating one's spouse since "Fatal Attraction", only imagine that film with TWO Glenn Closes, only they're both young and hot, and also complete psychopaths. At least Glenn Close's character was able to PASS for normal, even if she wasn't - but these girls are complete CRAZY pants.
Keanu Reeves plays Evan, a California architect who spends most of Father's Day alone so he can complete a project, while his wife and kids head to a beach house. He smokes some weed to get creative and keeps tackling his latest design, but then a huge rainstorm rolls in, and two young, attractive girls knock on his door, soaking wet, looking for a party somewhere in the neighborhood. Their cab has stranded them, they're lost AND their phones are wet, so they don't work. Well, of COURSE the charitable thing would be to let these girls come in and dry off, maybe offer them a cup of hot tea, put their wet clothes in the dryer - what could POSSIBLY go wrong, having two nearly naked girls in the house while his wife is away?
Yep, you guessed it, it looks like that Uber our hero called for the girls isn't going to be making a pick-up - the girls use the time to strike up a conversation with the very lonely, very horny man, and before you can say 1, 2, threesome, they're banging the night away, in the bed, in the shower, in the kitchen even, I think. Look, we all like to think that we'll be faithful to our partners, that we can stare temptation right in the eye and not succumb to it, but is it always true? Doesn't every man (or woman) have their breaking point? Some situation that's just too amazing to NOT take advantage of? There's a little wine, some weed, our defenses are down, and maybe just once in our life, we want to live in the moment without fear of repercussions.
Here's the thing, though, there are ALWAYS repercussions - even if this man had a fling with two hot women and they left the next morning, and they never called, never visited again, he'd still KNOW, deep down in his memories, and perhaps in time that guilt would eat him alive, or it would ruin his relationship from the inside, he'd be mad and disappointed with himself, and maybe even lash out at his wife. Logically, it's her fault, isn't it? She started fooling around with him that morning and then just stopped, because the kids were up, then she took off on that long drive to the beach with the kids. (Yes, obviously this was written by a male screenwriter, who found a way to blame the wife for her husbands' infidelity. Umm, congratulations?)
But here's the problem - these women don't leave. They make themselves "brekkies" and make a total mess in the kitchen, then when Evan tries to throw them out of the house, they threaten to call the police and report him as a sex offender. Suddenly the girls claim to be 15 years old, when they're clearly, well, older than that - but how can you be sure? Suddenly Evan sees his life spiraling out of control when he realizes what he's done. Now he's willing them anything they want, money, a ride out of town, hell, give them the family car if they want it. Anything to avoid doing hard time. But what the girls WANT, apparently, is to teach Evan a lesson and/or destroy his life. So they set about doing exactly that.
I've had a running joke on Twitter over the last week, after describing each film's plot I've said, "This can't end well..." and it's true, a lot of my movies this month have been downers, what with gangsters and Nazis and a global pandemic, bank robberies and hotel murders and the destructive power of social media - and people wonder why I find it hard to get out of bed in the morning! But this is the first film in a long while to cause me physical PAIN while watching it, I was all twisted up in my desk chair watching Evan's predicament get worse and worse. Last week there were TWO films where Ben Kingsley was captured and tied to a chair, and today it's Keanu's turn.
The girls end up destroying Evan's record collection, family photos, most of the furniture, and a good deal of his wife's art. Oh, yeah, they've probably destroyed his marriage, his reputation and his relationship with his kids, too. I don't know how somebody bounces back from something like this - the screenwriter apparently doesn't either, because the film stops before there's any chance at repair or redemption in Evan's life, assuming that's even possible. What was Evan supposed to do, slam the door in the girls' faces when they knocked on his door? Yes, that is exactly what he should have done, only he didn't know that at the time.
We get so used to "it's darkest before the dawn" scenarios in movies, situations that keep getting worse and worse until there's some kind of miraculous salvation at the end. But what feeling am I supposed to have if that answer, that resolution, never comes? Well, sure, it sucks to be Evan. And I have to remind myself to never, never, put myself in any similar situation. But never is a long time, and many things can happen over time. Without that "savior" moment in the plot, things tend to end up very dark indeed. The audience, however, can walk away thinking that this could never happen to them, if that helps.
(I work part-time in a movie theater that shows a bunch of premieres, and I'm occasionally celebrity-adjacent. It's a bit weird that sometimes I see a famous person in real life, doing a Q&A after a film and I think, "Hmm, didn't I see her naked in that movie?" but you can blame Thomas Edison for that, not me. I don't think we all realize the ways in which movies and the internet have changed our lives, and I mean every aspect of our lives, even sexually. Without nudie films and internet porn, our lives might be very different - boring perhaps, though there was definitely drawn porn in Victorian times and maybe even in Egyptian hieroglyphics. It's just that the technology has gotten a thousand times better. But I would never, never get involved with somebody on a whim, for a fling, at least I tell myself that I'm stronger than that.)
This was directed by Eli Roth, director of horror movies like "Hostel" and "Cabin Fever", also action movies like the "Death Wish" remake. You can take this as a horror movie of sorts, if that helps you remember to not let any strange, stranded nubile women inside your house.
Also starring Keanu Reeves (last seen in "Bill & Ted Face the Music"), Lorenza Izzo (last seen in "Life Itself"), Ignacia Allamand, Dan Baily, Megan Baily, Aaron Burns, Colleen Camp (last seen in "Spenser Confidential").
RATING: 3 out of 10 reasons to keep it in your pants
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